


i will love you without a single string attached

by quidhitch



Series: i found a way to let you in, but i never really had a doubt [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 17:50:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quidhitch/pseuds/quidhitch
Summary: Tony has to say it three times before Steve actually takes him seriously.The first time is in the post-battle adrenaline haze that follows a really long, really good fight. Tony takes off the helmet, looks at the debris around him, and shares a smile with his disgusting boyfriend, who is currently covered in dirt and has blood crusting over his cheek. “Baby,” Tony says, still kind of out of breath, “let’s get married.”And Steve snorts. Loudly and rudely.





	i will love you without a single string attached

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from sleeping at last - two which is my #1 stevetony song

Tony has to say it three times before Steve actually takes him seriously.

The first time is in the post-battle adrenaline haze that follows a really long, really good fight. Tony takes off the helmet, looks at the debris around him, and shares a smile with his disgusting boyfriend, who is currently covered in dirt and has blood crusting over his cheek. “Baby,” Tony says, still kind of out of breath, “let’s get married.”

And Steve snorts. Loudly and rudely.

Tony is about to go off on a whole spiel about what an absolute bastard he is, but Steve cuts it short by stepping forward and wrapping an arm around Tony’s waist, pressing a long, searing kiss to his mouth. There are crows of disgust over their comm lines, where their now gagging teammates are voicing dissent to the current proceedings. Tony uses the hand that’s not on Steve’s ass to turn off the connection.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Steve says when he pulls back, tipping his forehead against Tony’s.

Tony grins and kisses Steve again, biting his lip playfully. “Come on. Takes a lot more than that to lay me out.”

“I know,” Steve says quietly, and Tony squeezes his ass in comfort, because he’s a romantic like that.

“We only get to have sex after you say yes,” Tony reminds, armored fingers flexing casually.

“Oh,” Steve shrugs, all casual as he brushes a little ash off Tony’s eyebrow, “no sex tonight, then. Hey, do we still have scrabble at home?”

So that hadn’t been the best of Tony’s marriage plots, but in his defense, he was riding on the high of a seriously powerful neurochemical cocktail, one that could only be brought about by spells of extreme violence that happened go his way.

The second time is during sex.

Steve is inside him, spread out under him, hands braced on Tony’s hips as Tony rides him until his thighs ache. Tony is close— eyes-squeezed-shut-gripping-Steve’s-hand-in-warning kind of close—

And Steve says “wait.”

Tony freezes instantly, which is made even more difficult by the fact that Steve used the Captain America voice, which isn’t really fair because he knows how much it turns Tony on in the context of their bedroom.

“What’s up?” Tony says, panting a little, running his hand soothingly up Steve’s chest.

“I just think we should wait.”

It takes several seconds for Tony to grasp his meaning. “W... wait to come?”

Steve nods, once, sharp. “Yeah. The last three nights we’ve been done so fast. Let’s wait this time.”

Tony wets his lips. “For how long?”

“Not too long.”

To the surprise of exactly no one who’d actually met Steve Rogers, ‘not too long’ ended up being far, far, far too fucking long. Steve stays inside him the whole time, but he just kisses Tony agonizingly slowly, massages the insides of his thighs, occasionally grips his hips and pushes up in a thrust just hard enough to spark arousal but not hard enough to get Tony any closer to finishing.

“I swear to god, Steve,” Tony breathes, arms wrapped around his neck, Steve’s teeth scraping across his pulse point, “If you fuck me right now, I will marry you. I will marry you so hard. I’ll be, like, a fifties housewife who quits her job and just stays home and makes really disgusting food in a poodle skirt.”

Steve laughs, and proceeds to draw it out for another thousand years. By the time Tony finally comes, he doesn’t have the energy to marry anyone, and promptly conks the hell out in the safety of his boyfriends’ giant arms.

The third time is when they’re reading the paper over breakfast.

Well. Steve is reading the paper. Tony is pretending to read the news on his tablet, but he’s actually alternating between sipping his coffee in a loud, somewhat passive-aggressive manner and giving his boyfriend a series of increasingly sullen looks that he doesn’t appear to notice.

Finally, Tony gets tired of waiting for Steve to pick up on the vibe, and just blurts out “why don’t you wanna marry me?”

Steve freezes, bite of muesli midway to his mouth. He sets down the spoon. He sets down the paper. “Excuse me?”

 _Ugh_ , Tony thinks. _I’m literally dating a nonagenarian_. “I keep proposing and you keep saying no!”

Steve’s brow furrows. “You have never proposed.”

“Oh yes I fucking have!” Tony insists, though his confidence in that statement wavers, slightly, at the firmness in Steve’s jaw. “I proposed when we fought Doom! I proposed while we were in bed after the shareholders dinner!”

The confusion on Steve's face seems to settle into intense skepticism. “Tony, please. You couldn’t possibly have been serious in either of those circumstances.”

Now it’s Tony’s turn to say excuse me.

“Everyone’s on an adrenaline rush after a battle, people do all sorts of crazy stuff, it’s pure expressions of instinct!”

“And I’m sure it doesn’t say anything that my instinct was _to propose to you_.”

“And Bucky told me that when someone says that while they’re, you know...” Steve waves a hand around, presumably to connote their dirty, dirty lovemaking, “It just means they want to marry the idea of having sex with you!”

“First of all,” Tony hisses, narrowly resisting the urge to throw a piece of bacon at Steve’s head, “that literally makes no sense whatsoever. Second of all, we are going to have a talk about you discussing our sex life with the Winter Soldier.”

“You tweet about our sex life!”

“My point still stands!”

They sit on opposite ends of the dining table glaring at each other in a way Pepper would probably call “petulant” and“childish”, before Tony decides he’s going to be more mature than his nonagenarian boyfriend, and go down to the workshop to get something productive done.

The second he tries to leave, though, Steve’s coming after him, saying “wait, wait, wait” and placing a staying hand on his arm.

“You really mean it?” he asks, and he looks so hopeful (and still kind of angry, but Tony privately thinks his angry face is really cute) that Tony goes soft.

“Yeah,” he says roughly, trying to combat the effect of the hearts that probably just popped up in his eyes.

“You really, really want to get married to me?”

“Yeah unless you don’t actually want to get married!” Tony snaps. “In which case, I feel the same way and also I’ve literally never liked you. What’s your name again? Stove?”

“Tony,” Steve interrupts, ignoring him entirely. “I definitely want to get married.”

Tony’s heart skips several, devastating beats. A small silence settles between them, and Steve is still frowning, but now he’s also nodding determinedly, like he’s never been so committed to anything in his entire life. “Okay,” he says, “okay. We’re getting married.”

They keep frowning at each other, but Steve starts to break immediately, the hard lines in his expression softening into a smile. And then he’s grabbing Tony around the waist, lifting him off the ground, and spinning him in a circle, and Tony’s too in love to remember to make fun of him for how corny that is.

“We’re getting married,” Steve says again, breathless with laughter and grinning at Tony.

“We’re getting married,” Tony agrees, and wraps his legs around Steve’s waist, leans down to kiss him.

* * *

It’s going to be a December wedding. Tony rents out a mansion in upstate New York, and Steve compiles a guest list so short he only needs one piece of paper. They release a press announcement that they’re engaged, but Pepper carefully centers the detail that they haven’t decided on a date yet. The last thing they need is a bunch of news outlets crashing their quiet, distinguished ceremony.

“No stripper cakes.”

“I can’t believe you think I’d order a stripper cake for our wedding,” Tony protests, and quietly crosses _Call The Lusty Leopard_ off his to-do list.

Steve, who has his head in Tony’s lap, eyes him suspiciously. “And you are not getting married in Mark-42. We’re wearing real suits. —Well, you can wear a dress if you want, but I’m wearing a suit.”

“Maybe not the full dress. Maybe just the veil.”

Steve smiles. “I like that.”

“Alright. A suit and a veil.”

“Can we do fireworks,” Steve asks, looking up at Tony with lidded blue eyes. Tony considers the itinerary he’s put together in his head. If he cuts the third encore for AC/DC, they will possibly have time for fireworks.

(He’d initially asked Pepper to plan the wedding, and she’d laughed so loudly that it drew the attention of nearly every dinner table in their vicinity.)

“Yeah,” Tony says, running a hand through Steve’s hair. “Yeah, we can do fireworks.”

“Fireworks with — with music in the background. Music that I like.”

“So music that Sam likes.”

“Music that Sam and I like. Promise.”

“I promise,” Tony says gently, absently running the back of his hand along the sharp cut of Steve’s jaw.

“Good,” Steve yawns and leans into the touch, “love fireworks.”

“I know you do.”

Steve and Tony’s first date had been on Steve’s birthday - the evening of the fourth of July. They'd kissed on the roof of Stark Tower and spent the next several hours in each other’s arms, watching the night sky light up with reds and blues and greens. After that, Tony had decided he loved fireworks, too.

“Take a nap, Captain Sleepyhead. I can handle this on my own.”

“S’posed to be helping you,” Steve sighs, but his eyes flutter closed.

“You can help me tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

Tony pretends he’s still working, but really he’s watching Steve sink into a deep, fitful sleep, the kind that makes him snore frighteningly loudly. When Tony had first met him, he clocked about 3 hours of rest a night. These days it’s closer to 9, and Tony can even make him forgo a morning run with careful employment of his feminine wiles.

Once Steve starts making those ungodly pig noises, Tony grins and turns his attention back at his tablet. He thinks about Steve’s eyes, and buys several arrangements of forget-me-nots.

* * *

“When you get to the wedding, I want you to stand at the front.”

Pepper and Happy blink curiously at him. Tony takes a long sip of his coffee and winces, silently cursing weak Starbucks blends. He has no idea how Pepper survives on this stuff.

“You guys are looking at me like that was a difficult instruction.”

“Tony,” Pepper says carefully, voice measured and patient, “when you say stand in the front, do you mean... Or, are you asking—“

“Rhodey will also be standing in the front. At the ceremony,” Tony explains, waving his hand dismissively. “You just stand next to Rhodey, who will be standing next to me.”

Pepper’s mouth forms a small, understanding ‘oh’, but Happy still looks confused. “He’s asking us to be his groomsmen,” she explains, an amused smile quirking the corner of her mouth.

“Oh. Ohhhhhh,” Happy says.

Tony’s stomach does a sickening twist, and for a moment he wonders — _is this weird, am I weird, am I asking for too much, have they secretly hated me for the past 15 years_ —

But Pepper staunches that disturbing line of thought by saying, “Anyways, of course we’ll stand at the front, Tony. Is there something in particular you want us to wear?”

Relief spreads from the center of Tony’s chest, like when he put the new core into his arc reactor, like when he saw Rhodey running towards him in the middle of the desert.

“No,” he says, taking another small sip of his crappy coffee, “no. Just no white. That’s a rule, right? No white?”

“Think so,” Pepper hums. She has a funny expression on her face, like maybe she’s proud of him.

* * *

It snows the day of the ceremony.

Tony wakes up and the first thing he sees is a flurry of white powder outside, a thin layer of snow sticking to the grass. He relinquishes the warmth of the comforter to get a closer look, pressing the bare soles of his feet onto the cool wooden floors and stumbling over to the window.

It’s beautiful. Tony wonders if it’ll still be snowing during the ceremony. He imagines Sam and Bucky shoving handfuls of it down each other’s shirts, Rhodey giving Pepper his suit jacket, and snowflakes sticking to Steve’s eyelashes.

He’s getting _married_ today.

“Tony?” Happy’s rapping on his door, probably telling him he needs to start getting ready or deal with some last minute catering emergency. Tony makes him wait a couple minutes, just to keep watching the wind whip through rich green pine trees, the perfect rush of white.

* * *

When Steve first suggested the whole ‘don’t see each other on the day of the wedding’ crap, Tony had been majorly skeptical.

“Isn’t that for people who are, like, chaste?” Tony had asked, waggling his eyebrows and slipping his hand beneath the loose elastic waistband of Steve’s sweats.

“It’s bad luck,” Steve had said primly, a blush blazing across his cheeks, “I don’t want to curse our marriage!”

And, what, was _Tony_ supposed to be the guy who wanted to curse their marriage? So he’d given in, somewhat reluctantly. Unfortunately, the rest of their invitees were occupying all of the actual guest rooms in the mansion, so Tony had been exiled to what was formerly the servant quarters. It smelled a little like moldy t-shirts, but he supposed this was what Dr. Phil’s was talking about when he said ‘every marriage requires sacrifice’.

Several hours into their wedding day, however, Tony will admit that this particular practice may have some merit. Spending this much time apart from Steve, all the while holding the knowledge of what they’re going to do today and what they’re going to do tonight, the anticipation becomes deliciously torturous. At one point he swears he sees someone with Steve’s blonde hair and broad shoulders ducking into a bathroom, and he has to excuse himself to go furiously jack off in his room. He’s not sure if that’s what Steve had in mind when he went on that ten-minute spiel about Cultivating The Atmosphere for their Perfect Moment, but it felt pretty romantic to Tony.

By the time he’s actually standing at the end of the aisle, waiting for the whole thing to start, he’s about to vibrate out of his skin. Rhodey’s right next to him, saying some crap about he’s proud of Tony for letting himself be happy, settling down with someone who really loves him, becoming the man he was always meant to be (blah blah blah). Tony is nodding and trying to direct loving looks towards his best friend every couple seconds, but mostly he’s thinking about how he’s going to _tear Steve apart_ tonight.

And then the priest starts talking, and while Tony prides himself on being able to maintain a very explicit stream of consciousness no matter the relative unsexiness of his surroundings, this priest is— well. Tony just can’t. She’s all old and sweet and she has this pair of glasses with little purple frames, and he’s never had a grandma but he thinks if he did, she’d probably look like this. Steve picked her and Tony can’t remember why — did some come with the house? Did she come with Steve’s church?

Anyways, she goes through the whole thing: dearly beloved we are gathered here today, never thought this would happen, share in their love, and so on and so forth. Tony’s attention span has shrunk to approximately five seconds, so throughout the duration of her speech he ponders the following twelve things:

  1. How does Natasha look better than literally any of us in a suit?
  2. Pepper is making eyes at Natasha — is that a thing?
  3. I should’ve worn lifts in my shoes.
  4. Why is this veil so itchy?
  5. If I start scratching my face, will people notice?
  6. Okay, so Fury definitely noticed. Of all the people to notice, of course it was Fury. Fuck you old man.
  7. When do we get to eat? I want cake.
  8. I wonder if Rhodey has a mint in his pocket.
  9. I wonder if I have a mint in my pocket.
  10. If I eat a mint right now, would anyone notice?
  11. This part of the wedding is usually so much shorter in all the romantic comedies Steve makes me watch that I definitely don’t also enjoy watching.
  12. When you’re at a movie theater, which armrest is supposed to be yours?



Tony really doesn’t start paying attention again until Steve’s aisle song starts playing — Nothing Can Change This Love by Sam Cooke — and Tony thinks ugh, god, finally, we can get on with this. The rest of the bridal party comes down. Sam manages to get by without tripping Bucky, and everyone carefully pretends not to notice the lipstick on Natasha’s collar. (Tony, however, takes a moment to smugly think: ha — that is a thing!)

Sam’s niece hobbles towards the altar tossing rose petals at everybody. She falls about halfway through, and Peter, who’s the ring bearer, rushes down the aisle to scoop her up in his arms and carry her the rest of the way.

“Thanks, kid,” Tony says, and then feels momentarily thrown by the sight of tears gathering in the corner of Peter’s eyes.

“Congratulations, Mr. Stark,” he sniffles, and then moves to stand beside Rhodey. Rhodey hands him a handkerchief and he blows his nose very, very loudly. Tony tries not to wince at the sound, but he thinks he might let something slip anyways because Peter starts looking reproachfully at his shoes. Tony’ll have to fix that later. The solution will probably (definitely) depend on copious amounts of wedding cake.

Tony’s distracted again, ‘cause everyone starts standing up, and then he thinks _oh, shit, this is it! It’s happening!_

And then Steve appears in the doorway of the church, red and yellow flowers clasped in his hand, looking shy and positively virginal. Maybe it’s corny, but the second Tony’s eyes lock on Steve’s face, all the racket in his head goes completely, blissfully silent.

They’d had a little fight about who was going to walk down the aisle. Steve said Tony should do it because he was wearing the veil, and Tony had petulantly protested, saying it wasn’t right of Steve to assume he was that kind of girl. They’d ended up flipping a coin for it, though Tony suspects Steve is secretly glad he won after Tony told him he’d only walk down the aisle to Back in Black.

Now, watching Steve come closer with this dopey, ridiculously lovestruck expression, he’s even more certain this was the right choice. The way they must be looking at each other right now — god. Everyone probably thinks they’re that couple. (Which they totally are. And Tony’s kind of smug about it.)

Tony belatedly realizes that his face is wet, and it takes him an embarrassing number of seconds to understand it’s because he’s crying. He’s momentarily glad for the cover of the itchy veil, but the second Steve gets within earshot, his traitorous nose starts to itch and he lets out a quiet, barely perceptible sniffle. His asshole husband, blessed with super soldier ears, looks surprised, then downright gleeful, like he’s definitely going to be making fun of Tony for this later.

“You okay?” Steve asks in a low, teasing voice, probably not audible past the first row of pews.

“Fuck off,” Tony answers, and sniffles again.

The priest goes off on another bit about their love, but Tony’s just staring at Steve, drinking in the way he looks. The usually unforgiving lines of his face are softened by candlelight, and he’s staring at Tony like they’re the only two people in the universe. He looks like he does when he’s just woken up, when he’s making Tony dinner, when Tony’s ruffling his hair. He looks like home.

Tony doesn’t even know how he manages to say ‘I do’ on cue, because he honestly feels like he’s going to start full on sobbing at any moment. He’s also pretty glad they decided against doing their own vows — Steve thought it was silly and performative, the most romantic thing Tony could come up with was 2 minutes on the mystifying powers of his fiance’s ass.

“By the power vested in me,” old lady starts, eyes twinkling behind her glasses, “I now pronounce you husband and husband. As Mr. Stark would say — you may now seal the deal.”

Steve reaches forward and lifts the veil, swiping his thumb along the tear tracks on Tony’s cheek. “So sappy,” he teases, and Tony reaches to tug him forward by his tie, and kiss him with far more tongue than is appropriate for a Family Friendly Event. He’s pretty sure there are people cheering in the background and someone’s playing the wedding march on an organ, but the only thing that matters is the heavy weight of Steve’s arms around his waist, the feeling of Steve’s breath across his mouth.

“I love you,” Steve says when he pulls back. He rests his forehead against Tony’s and reaches for Tony’s hand, locking their fingers together.

Tony kisses his nose and squeezes his hand. He can’t even find something snarky to say. There is nothing snarky about this moment. His life, for once, is completely and totally humorless.

“I love you, too.”

* * *

The next morning, Tony wakes up in a small pile of feathers.

He doesn’t know how they managed to tear two pillows and a goose down comforter last night, but he’s inclined to blame Steve and that pesky superstrength. For a couple minutes he tries to do that Classically Romantic thing where the admirer just watches the object of their affection sleep, but he gets bored and horny very quickly.

“Steve,” Tony presses, pushing lightly at his shoulder, “baby, are you awake?”

Steve sighs a little, eyes still closed. “Now I am.”

“Oh, great, crazy coincidence, so am I.” Tony rambles, completely shameless as he rolls over to straddle Steve’s stomach, ignoring Steve’s light grunt and bracing his palms on his large barrel of a chest. Steve, despite his initial morning grouchiness, looks up at Tony fondly and runs his hands down Tony’s sides, settling his thumbs into the little divots in Tony’s hips.

“Hey,” Tony says, grinning lazily.

“Hi,” Steve says back, a soft smile curving the corner of his mouth. “It’s the first day of our honeymoon.”

“Well noticed.”

“What do you want to do?” Steve sits up, hooks his hands in the backs of Tony’s knees and settles him properly in his lap. “If you could do anything in the world today, what would it be?”

Tony thinks for a second. “Remember that one week you did yoga with Natasha?”

“Mhmm.”

“And you wore those tight little yoga pants? And demonstrated just how aptly you can fold yourself in half, in full display of anyone who might happen to be refilling their coffee in the kitchen?”

“…so,” Steve says, brow tilting skeptically, “for the first day of our honeymoon, the whole day, you want me to… do yoga in front of you? And you just watch me?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, and can’t resist leaning forward for a kiss, even if they both have morning breath. “Yeah, honestly, Sugar Plum, that sounds really good.”

Steve wrinkles his nose, slides one hand up to trace along the grooves of Tony's collarbone. “Sugar Plum?”

“No?” Tony asks, grinning, “Honey Pot?”

Steve shakes his head.

“Gummy bear?”

“ _How_ do they keep getting worse?

Tony rolls his eyes and scoots off of Steve’s lap, falling back against the bed and tugging Steve on top of him. Their legs slot together under the covers, and Steve slips a hand between Tony’s back and the mattress, large palm settling at the base of Tony’s spine. Tony wriggles underneath him, loosely wraps his legs around Steve’s hips.

“Husband,” he teases, leaning up to nip at Steve’s nose.

“Ah,” Steve says, grinning, too, now, “that one’s not so bad.”

They don’t really make it past the bedroom that day. Or the day after.

**Author's Note:**

> perhaps more to come?? perhaps the life of an Old Married Couple :')


End file.
